1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a feeding system for a conveyor used to sort articles suspended on hangers.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Commercial laundering facilities which handle numerous garments or articles of clothing must be able to sort a large number of the articles once they have been cleaned and are ready to be delivered to the customer. Typically, commercial facilities are required to sort the articles of clothing by delivery route, customer and man. Sorting conveyors used for sorting these garments must be able to sort a large number of garments quickly without requiring a great deal of man power. Conveyors used for sorting these various articles usually consist of a conveyor which has attachment members upon which the garments supported on clothes hangers are placed. Once the articles are placed on these attachment members, the conveyor carries the garments to various sorting stations along the path of the conveyor. Automated means for removing the articles from the conveyor are provided at each station so that the garments, which are identified with a particular route, customer or man, are collected at each station. The conveyor usually moves continuously with the garments being placed on the attachment members one at a time, each attachment member supporting one garment. In order to supply the conveyor with the garments to be sorted, an operator is usually required to feed each individual garment onto the attachment members of the conveyor. In most cases, an operator is also required to scan or input identification data for each garment into a computer. This allows each article to be tracked by the computer as the article is moved along the conveyor so the computer can control the automated means for removing the articles when the article passes the appropriate sorting station.
Due to the large volume of garments or articles that are required to be sorted, the task of feeding and identifying the articles becomes quite repetitious. A human operator is often slow or inefficient in feeding the articles to the sorting conveyor. What is needed is an automated feeding system wherein a large number of articles can be separated and fed to the conveyor and be automatically identified.